Mandarin Adaptations of Coda Nasals in English Loanwords

1

Mandarin Adaptations of Coda Nasals in English

Loanwords∗

Feng-fan Hsieh, Michael Kenstowicz and Xiaomin Mou

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The paper documents and analyzes the ways in which English loanwords

into Mandarin are adapted to conform to the Rhyme Harmony constraint

that requires the front vs. back quality of a nonhigh vowel to agree with

the coronal vs. dorsal character of a nasal coda. The principal finding is

that the backness of the English vowel determines the outcome and can

force a change in the place of articulation of the nasal coda. This is

attributed to the phonetic salience of the vowel feature in comparison to

the relative weakness of the nasal place feature. It is concluded that

*An earlier version of this paper was read at the Theoretical East Asian Linguistics Conference held at Harvard University, August 2005. We thank the audience as well as Andrea Calabrese, François Dell, San Duanmu, and Moira Yip for helpful comments.

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phonetic salience is a critical factor in loanword adaptation that can

override a phonologically contrastive feature.

Keywords enhancement, salience, phonetics vs. phonology

1. Background and Motivation

In the recent theoretical literature on loanword phonology two competing

models have emerged. The first, championed by Paradis & LaCharité

(1997, 2005) and others, holds that loanword adaptation is executed

primarily by bilinguals who draw on their phonological competences in

both the donor (L2) and recipient (L1) languages to discern segmental

equivalences at an abstract, phonological (phonemic) level. When an

exact phonemic match is not found then the closest available phoneme is

chosen, with distance measured in terms of the distinctive features

operative in the native, L1 grammar. An alternative view, typically

couched within the OT model, sees loanword adaptation as based on the

phonetic output of the donor language--either in the form of a raw

acoustic signal (Silverman 1992) or more usually in a UG-based phonetic

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transcription of varying degrees of detail and abstraction.1 The adapter

can take a variety of factors into account in order to make the loan sound

like a word of the native language while still remaining as faithful as

possible to the source of the loan. These include orthography as well as

phonetic properties that are salient to an L1 speaker--regardless of their

contrastive status in the L1 or L2 grammars. See Kenstowicz & Suchato

(2006) and Yip (2006) as well as cited references for discussion of this

alternative.

Mandarin Chinese presents us with the possibility of an interesting test

of these two alternative models of loanword adaptation. According to

most analyses (e.g. Duanmu 2000, 2007), Mandarin has five vowel

phonemes: /i/, /y/, /u/, /ə/, and /a/. The high vowels contrast for

[back] and [round] while the mid and low vowels do not. Stressed

syllables are subject to a bimoraic constraint. There are no complex

syllable margins. Codas are restricted to the nasals /n/ and /ŋ/ (modulo

r-suffixation in the formation of the diminutive) and the

1 Under standard conceptions, OT grammars lack an intermediate, phonemic (word-level) level of representation, making the kind of mapping envisioned by Paradis & LaCharité (1997, 2005) unavailable.

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glides/semivowels /j/, /w/. The canonical lexical item has the shape

C(Gl)VX (X = V, Gl, N). The vowels take on a variety of allophonic guises

depending on the surrounding consonants. In (1) we illustrate several

generic CVV syllables. The first column is the Pinyin transliteration, the

second is the underlying phonemicization, and the third is a broad

phonetic transcription (Duanmu 2000).

(1) Pinyin UR PR

ta tha thaa 'she'

ti thi thjii 'dam'

tu thu thwuu 'mud'

te thə thɤɤ 'special'

In the context of nasal codas the low vowel takes a relatively front

allophone before the dental nasal (typically transcribed as [an]) and a

relatively back, unrounded allophone before the velar nasal (transcribed

as [ɑŋ])--a distribution termed Rhyme Harmony in Duanmu (2000, 2007).

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By contrast, in English front and back low vowels freely combine with the

dental and velar nasal phonemes to give four possible combinations.2

(2) English Mandarin

[æn] Dan [an] dan 'egg'

[æŋ] dang

[ɑn] Don [ɑŋ] dɑŋ 'swing'

[ɑŋ] dong

If loanword adaptation abstracts away from the phonetic details in

both L1 and L2 grammars, then we expect that in cases of conflict

between faithfulness to the English vowel or to the nasal coda, the

Mandarin adaptation should be determined by the nasal consonant. This

is because the nasal coda is the only point of similarity at the

phonological level, given that the vowel is unspecified or noncontrastive

for [back] in Mandarin (indicated by the archiphoneme A; see Wang

2 Before the velar nasal the vowel is rounded [ɐ] or [ɔ] for many English speakers.

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(1993) and Duanmu (2000, 2007) for details). This scenario is sketched in

(3)

(3) phonological mapping

English Mandarin æn An æŋ ɑn Aŋ ɑŋ

Alternatively, if the adapter is trying to achieve the best phonetic match

then in cases of conflict (i.e. English [æŋ] and [ɑn]), additional

considerations may come into play to decide the outcome. A priori we

might expect variation across different lexical items depending on

whether the vowel or the coda nasal is the determining factor.

Alternatively, the adapter might call on other criteria to break the tie. For

example, while the [±back] vowel difference is phonologically

predictable, it is more salient phonetically and hence could provide a

better overall match than the nasal coda consonant--a segment whose

place features are relatively faint and highly susceptible to neutralization

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cross-linguistically. The latter scenario predicts the correspondences in

(4).

(4) phonetic (auditory) mapping

English Mandarin æn an æŋ ɑn ɑŋ ɑŋ

In the absence of a well-developed theory of loanword adaptation, it is

unclear which of these two alternatives is more likely to be true. Hence

the empirical study of such conflicting cases is an important step towards

such a theory.

Whether (3) or (4) is the correct scenario turns out to be a question

that is not so easily answered. It is well known that in comparison to

Japanese and Korean, Mandarin Chinese is highly resistant to

phonological loans, preferring loan translations or calques (Novotná

1967). Furthermore, it appears that many of the phonological loans that

entered the language in the Early Modern period (c. 1900 - 1940) have

been become obsolete or been replaced. Contemporary Mandarin

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vocabulary thus lacks a substantial body of loanwords that we can easily

consult in order to answer our question. We are thus forced to fall back

on more meager resources. We are aware of two sources with relevant

data. First, there is the Dictionary of Loanwords and Hybrid Words in

Chinese (Liu et al. 1984).3 We analyze material drawn from this source in

section 2. Second, there is the Website of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign

Affairs, which has a listing of the preferred transcriptions and

pronunciations for many foreign place names. We analyze data drawn

from the latter in section 3. Section 4 reviews the phonetic basis of the

front-back vowel enhancement of the coda nasal contrast to provide

independent support for our analysis. Section 5 is a brief summary and

conclusion.

2. Analysis of Loanwords from the Dictionary

Our study's loanword corpus consists of c. 600 items drawn from Liu et al.

(1984) that contain a VN sequence in the loan source (typically English). 3 The authors state that the dictionary was constructed in the period 1960-64 from material in dictionaries, monographs, Chinese translations of foreign classics, academic journals, newspapers, magazines, as well as other sources such as import-export catalogs, customs declaration forms, etc. The dictionary contains c. 10,000 items.

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The discussion here focuses on items where the vowel of the source word

is low or mid since this is where the vowel is phonologically unspecified

or noncontrastive for front vs. back in Mandarin and the resolution of the

conflict between faithfulness to the vowel vs. faithfulness to the coda

nasal of the English word can be studied. We organize the data into

several subcategories. The first consists of English VN rimes where V is

nonhigh, N is a dental or velar nasal, and the syllable bears some degree

of stress. Our main finding is that it is the front vs. back category of the

vowel that determines the outcome. We then look at VN sequences

drawn from final unstressed syllables in English. Here we find

competition between strategies based on approximation to the English

reduced vowel vs. those based on the orthographic representation. The

next category consists of loans in which a nasal has been inserted into the

coda to achieve a bimoraic syllable. Our data indicate that the front vs.

back quality of the vowel in English determines the substitution as [n] or

[ŋ], respectively. In the last group, the coda nasal of the English loanword

is [m], which must be repaired--typically by changing the [m] to [n] or

[ŋ]. Once again, we find that the vowel of the source word decides the

outcome.

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2.1 VN

When the vowel is low there is a partial correlation between its front vs.

back status in the English source word and its orthographic form. Front

vowel [æ] (RP [a]) is represented with the letter a (e.g. hat) while the

back, unrounded [ɑ] (or rounded [ɒ] in RP) is typically represented with

o (e.g. hot). However, sometimes [ɑ] is also spelled with the letter a (e.g.

class). Since we cannot always rely on English spelling, we have checked

all examples with the OED.4

When the English source consists of a front vowel combined with a

dental nasal ([æn]) or a back vowel combined with a velar nasal ([ɑŋ]),

we expect the Mandarin adaptation to contain a matching rime--i.e. [an]

or [ɑŋ], respectively. For English [æn] there are 31 loans in our corpus;

all but five support this hypothesis.


a. anchovy [æn] an.chou [an]

4 For the period of the early 20th century the British presence in China was much stronger than the American one and thus British English is the more likely source for the English loanwords.

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angel an.qi.er

antecedent an.ti.xi.deng

flange fa.lan.(-pan)

Vandyke fan.tai.ke

van de graaf fan.de.ge.la.fu

furan fu.ran

candelilla kan.te.li.la

clan ke.lan

cotangent kou.tan.jin

lancers lan.sa.si

rand lan.te

lanthanium lan

Levant li.fan.de

romantic luo.man.di.ke

romance luo.man.si

mantle man.tuo

pandora pan.duo.la

saraband sa.la.ban.de

sandal shan.da.li

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Sudan su.dan

tangent tan.jin

b. bandage [æn] beng.dai [ɤŋ]

phalanstery fa.lang.ji.si.te [ɑŋ]

scandium kang

lantum lang.tang

vandal wang.da.er

For English [ɑŋ] rimes there are seven examples in the corpus; five are

adapted as expected with a velar nasal and back vowel allophone (6a).


a. Congo [ɑŋ] gang.guo [ɑŋ]

franc fa.lang

furlong lang

pingpong ping.pang

mongoose meng.ge [ɤŋ]

b. encore [ɑŋ] an.ge [an]

gong gunge [un]

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The matrix in (7) summarizes the adaptation of the harmonic rhymes.

Mandarin preserves the front vs. back quality of the rhyme to a significant

degree.

(7) Mandarin

an ɑŋ

æn 26 4

ɑŋ 2 5

English p < 0.008 (two-tailed Fisher's exact test)

In loans where the English vowel and coda nasal do not agree as front

vs. back, there are two ways in which the adaptation can be brought into

alignment with the Mandarin [an] and [ɑŋ] codas required by Rhyme

Harmony. Either the front vs. back character of the vowel can be

preserved and the nasal changed; or alternatively the nasal coda can be

held constant and the vowel adjusted. The data overwhelmingly evidence

the first strategy. The corpus contains 24 loans where the English source

consists of a low, back vowel and a dental nasal. In all of the

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corresponding Mandarin loans, it is the nasal consonant that is changed,

giving an [ɑŋ] rhyme in the majority of cases (8a). In a few (8b), the

vowel is mid [oŋ] or [ɤŋ].


a. anon(ym) [ɑn] a.nang [ɑŋ]

ounce ang.si

Browning bai.lang.ning

pound bang

bezant bie.sang

radon dong

Oregon e.le.gang

ergon er.gang

concept gong.si.bu.tuo

fandango (Sp.) fang.dange

geon ji.ang.ding.sheng

condenser kang

canto (It.) kang.tuo

crown ke.lang

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marathon ma.la.song

monsoon mang.xun

pontificate pang.ti.fei.jia.te

pontoon pang.tong

plante (Fr.) pu.lang.te

samba sang.ba

sonnet shang.lai-ti

b. gondola [ɑn] gong.duo.la [oŋ]

neon ni.hong

cellon se.long

mont meng [ɤŋ]

The number of loanwords with a velar nasal coda and front vowel

nucleus is again smaller (13).5 Only four remain faithful to the nasal (9b).

5 The word mu.si.deng [dɤŋ] < mustang [æŋ] has an unexpected mid rather than low vowel. We are not able to explain this change in height. Given that it is treated as mid, the expected [den] syllable is rare in Modern Mandarin and is avoided in loans. See discussion of mid vowels below. The Yankee > yang.ji loan might arise from semantic contamination since the character used to represent it means 'western'.

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The rest (9a) change the [ŋ] to [n] so as to remain faithful to the English

vowel.


a. bank [æŋ] ban.ke [an]

Angora an.gela

Franklin fu.lan

Grange ge.lan.qi

Lancashire lan.kai.xia

Langley lan.le

tango tan.ge

tank tan.ke

triangle te.li.an.ge.'er

b. gangsa [æŋ] gang.sha [ɑŋ]

sarangi sa.lang.ji

wankel wang.ke.er

Yankee yang.ji

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The matrix in (10) summarizes the resolution of the conflicting English

rimes.

(10) Mandarin

an ɑŋ

æŋ 9 4

ɑn 0 24

English p < 0.000001 (two-tailed)

In sum, our hypothesis is supported--the more salient vowel normally

determines the adaptation even though the nasal coda is the site of the

phonological contrast.

Adopting the approach to loanword phonology taken in Kenstowicz

(2005) and Yip (2006) where faithfulness to the loanword source is

expressed as an OT Output-Output faithfulness constraint that may be

ranked differently from the corresponding Input-Output constraint of

native grammar, we can express the adaptation of the low vowel+nasal

coda words into Mandarin as follows. First, we assume an undominated

markedness constraint of RHYME HARMONY (Duanmu 2000, 2007) that

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requires a front vs. back low vowel to co-occur with a dental vs. velar

nasal coda, respectively (see Flemming 2003 for discussion of the

phonetic basis for such a constraint). Second, we assume that the nasal

codas are the site of the lexical contrast in Mandarin (F » M) while the

[±back] low vowel allophones [ɑ] and [a] are distributed by Rhyme

Harmony (M » F). Given the OT premise of Richness of the Base, native

grammar inputs in which the nucleus and coda violate Rhyme Harmony

are repaired by faithfulness to the coda, as in (11) below.

(11)

/ɑn/ Rhyme Harmony Id-CPl-Coda Id-[back]

[ɑn] *!

>[an] *

[ɑŋ] *!

/aŋ/

[aŋ] *!

>[ɑŋ] *

[an] *!

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But in the loanword phonology, in order to be faithful to the vowel of the

source language, the adapter calls on the otherwise submerged Id-[back]

constraint which is “cloned” as an Output-Output constraint between

English and Mandarin and ranked above Faithfulness to CPl-Coda.

(12) Id-[back]E-M » Id-CPl-Coda » Id-[back]

Given this ranking, the input-output adaptation mapping is diverted

towards faithfulness to the otherwise redundant vowel, as shown below.

(13)

/ɑn/ Rhyme Harmony Id-[back]E-M Id-CPl-Coda

[ɑn] *!

[an] *!

>[ɑŋ] *

/æŋ/

[aŋ] *!

[ɑŋ] *!

>[an] *

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Let us now consider examples where the English source word consists

of a mid vowel followed by a nasal coda. In Mandarin there are four

surface mid vowels whose distribution is determined by the surrounding

onset and coda consonants (Duanmu 2000, 2007). The basic allophone,

found in open syllables, is back unround [ɤ]. As with the low vowel, a

dental nasal requires a more fronted vowel nucleus [ən] (e.g. sen [sən]

‘forest’) while a velar nasal requires a back vowel nucleus [ɤ] or [o]. In

some varieties of Mandarin the latter derives from earlier [uŋ] by

lowering (e.g. [toŋ] ‘same). Dialects also differ in whether or not [oŋ] is

retained after a labial onset: cf. Taiwanese Mandarin [moŋ] 'fierce' vs.

Beijing [mɤŋ]. Finally, there is a more close front vowel allophone after a

palatal glide onset [je].6

6 In order to have some sense of the location of these allophones in phonetic space, we recorded five tokens for each from a male Taiwanese Mandarin speaker (the first author). The results showing the average first and second formant measures and standard deviations from the mid point of the vowel are shown below. We see that the [ə] is a relatively central vowel falling roughly midway between the front [je] and the back rounded [o] in F2. The nucleus of the [je] is more close, showing the influence of the onglide.

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Turning to the loanwords, there are three cases to consider

depending on whether the English vowel is [ɛ], [o], or [ʌ]. We examine

each of these in turn. First, when the mid vowel is [ɛ] and the coda is [n]

in the English source, Mandarin offers the choice between [je] and [ən].

Neither option is particularly close. It is therefore of some interest that

the former is systematically rejected in favor of the latter (14).


amen [ɛn] a.men [ən]

pentyl ben.ti.er

benzene ben

benzocaine ben.zuo.ka.yin

Enfield en.fei.er

phen(ol) fen

phosgene fu.su.zhen

F1 F2 ben [bən] 472/9 1476/32 ‘run’ beng [bɤŋ] 471/12 1100/68 ‘collapse’ song [soŋ] 465/20 857/47 ‘loose bjen [bjen] 366/15 2352/31 ‘edge’

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convention kang.wen.xin

pimento pi.men.ta

cement shui.men.ting

The choice of central [ə] over diphthongal [je] for English [ɛ] indicates

that Dep-Glide dominates faithfulness for [back].

(15)

/bɛn/ Dep-Gl Id-[back]E-M

[bən] *

[bjen] *!

The few exceptions to this correspondence occur when the C[ən] syllable

is either not attested in the existing inventory of Mandarin syllable types

or is rare (16). In this case an adjustment must be made--changing the

vowel or the nasal.7

7Since the data in the dictionary are all transcribed with Chinese characters, a syllable containing a novel combination of CVC cannot be easily represented. It is not clear to us to what extent this fact about

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(16) Ländler (Germ) lian.de.la *[lən]

lentor lun.tuo *[lən]

engine yin.qing *[ən]

tendency ting.deng.se *[tən], *[tin]

Curiously, it is the vowel height that is changed while the front vs. back

property of the vowel in the source word is largely maintained. This

suggests that faithfulness for the vowel is broken down into faithfulness

for [±back] (F2) vs. faithfulness for height [±high], [±low] (F1), as

indicated in the tableau in (17). (We assume the undominated constraint

USE-LISTED-SYLLABLE: A syllable in the adapted loanword must have a

precedent in the native inventory).

orthography inhibits the creation of novel combinations of onset, rhyme, and tone. See Bauer (1985) for novel syllables in loans to Cantonese.

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(17)

/ten/ Use-Ld-Syll Id-[back]E-M Id-[high]E-M Id-CPl-Coda

ten *!

tin *!

>tiŋ * *

toŋ *! *

Our corpus contains 12 examples of conflicting English rimes in

[on]. In the corresponding Mandarin adaptations, they change the [n] to

velar [ŋ] in order to remain faithful to the vowel (18a). The lone

exception is shown in (18b). When the onset is a labial consonant then

the vowel [o] is blocked by the labial disharmony constraint that bans the

combination of a labial onset and rhyme in the Beijing dialect. The back

unrounded vowel [ɤ] (Pinyin eng) or the low [ɑ] is substituted in this

case.


a. amidone [on] a.mi.tong [oŋ]

barbitone ba.bi.tong

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chalone ka.er.long

clone ke.long

Cologne ke.long

hormone he.er.meng [ɤŋ]

telephone de.lu.feng

microphone mai.ke.feng

sousaphone su.sha.feng

sarrusophone sa.luo.suo.feng

leone li.ang [ɑŋ]

b. scone [on] shi.gan [an]

The contingency table in (19) summarizes the outcome of the

competing changes for the [±back] feature of the vowel and the

corresponding coronal vs. dorsal place feature of the nasal coda.

(19) Mandarin

Vn Vŋ

en 14 2

on 1 11

English p = 0.000053 (two-tailed)

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As the tableau in (20) shows, in the case of the conflicting back vowel +

coronal coda the correct adaptation is made by the Id-[back]E-M » Id-CPl-

Coda ranking established for the low vowels in (12).

(20)

/on/ Rhyme-Harmony Id-[back]E-M Id-CPl-Coda

[on] *!

> [oŋ] *

[ən] *!

The behavior of the English rimes composed of the centralized, wedge

vowel [ʌ] suggests that it is not salient enough on the crucial [±back] F2

dimension to force a change in the nasal coda. Faithfulness to the coda

obtains in all but one case (21). The vowel receives a range of adaptations

as high, mid, or low.


a. uncial [ʌn] an.se.er [an]

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punch pan.qu

hundredweight han.jue.huai.tuo

carborundum ka.bo.lan.deng

Brunswick bu.lun.si.wei.ke [un]

sundae sheng.dai [ɤŋ]

b. Young [ʌŋ] yang [ɑŋ]

To summarize the adaptation of English VN rimes with a mid vowel,

we find [ɛn] and [on] primarily rendered as faithful to vowel quality at

the expense of change in the nasal consonant. The adaptation of [ʌn] and

[ʌŋ] is determined by the nasal coda, indicating that the wedge vowel is

not decisive and reflecting its intermediate position on the [±back] F2

dimension.

Before turning to reduced vowels, we note a minor pattern. Seven

items in our corpus terminate in the graph -oon. Since [dun], [tun], [sun]

and [lun] are valid Mandarin syllables, it is puzzling why these

adaptations are rejected in five of the seven items--primarily in favor of

C[ong]. Possibly in these cases the adapter was following a graphic rule

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that interprets the -oon as if it terminated in a tense mid vowel, (i.e. [on])

rather than the phonetic [un].


cardoon [un] ha.dun [un]

monsoon mang.xun [yn]

cartoon ka.tong [oŋ]

pantaloon pa.ta.long

pontoon pang.tong

shalloon xia.long

simoon xi.meng [ɤŋ]

English loans with final syllables containing unstressed, reduced

vowels exhibit two competing adaptation strategies. The primary one

substitutes en [ən]--arguably Mandarin's best phonetic match to the

schwa-like, reduced vowel of English (23a). This practice is followed

unless an illegal or rare syllable such as len [lən] or den [tən] results, in

which case a high vowel is typically substituted (23b) instead. In a few

cases (23c), the adapter has based the choice on the spelling.

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a. Addis [ən] a.di.sen [ən]

eikonogen ai.ke.nu.zhen

Bremen bu.le.men

predicament bu.li.di.jia.men

cushion gu.chen

claisen ke.lai.sen

co.se.cant kou.xi.gen

li.nen lian.ren

mammon ma.men

Mormon mo.men

bacon pei.gen

pullman pu.er.men

salmon sa.men

cinchophen xin.ke.fen

union yu.ren

b. Appleton [ən] a.pu.dun [un] [dən] (rare)

dal.ton dao.er.dun

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weston wei.si.dun

baron ba.lun *lən

per.lon bei.lun

gallon jia.lun

carron ka.lun

Corbillon kao.bi.lun

chaldron qiao.te.lun

c. satan [ən] sa.dan [an]

ti.tan tai.tan

Zion xi.an

harmattan ha.ma.dan

These data can be analyzed by assuming that the schwa of the source

word is not salient enough to determine the outcome and the decision is

passed on to the coda nasal. Since all the examples have coda [n], no

change is required. Our corpus contains no unstressed syllables with a

coda dorsal nasal, which in any case are rare with nonhigh vowels in

English. The tableau below illustrates the adaptation baron > ba.lun. The

adaptations with the high vowel in (23b) indicate that [+high] is

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preferred to [+low] as a match for the unstressed schwa of English,

probably because high vowels are phonetically shorter than low vowels

cross-linguistically.

(24)

/bærən/ Use-Ld-Syll Id-[back] Id-CPl-Coda Id-duration

lən *!

loŋ * *!

lan * *!

>lun *

In sum, the adaptations analyzed in this section indicate that when the

vowel of the English source word is front or back then it determines the

way in which the loan accommodates the Rhyme Harmony constraint.

Nonsalient schwa or wedge seem to pass the decision on to the nasal

coda.

In the next two sections we review a couple of other places in the

loanword grammar where the place feature of a nasal coda is determined

by the vowel of the source word

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2.2 V.NV -> VN.NV

In (25) we list examples in which a nasal consonant is added to the coda

before a following nasal onset in order to satisfy the bimoraic

requirement on stressed syllables. Interestingly, the choice between [n]

and [ŋ] is determined, not by geminating the nasal of the source word,

but rather by the vowel of the augmented syllable (25a). For example, in

the adaptation of economy the English stressed syllable is augmented in

the Mandarin loan by insertion of a velar rather than a dental nasal:

ai.kang.nuo.mi. The handful of exceptions to this generalization is shown

in (25b).8


a. amonal [on] a.mang.na [ɑŋ]

economy [ɑn] ai.kang.nuo.mi [ɑŋ]

anarchy [æn] an.na.qi [an]

8 The OED indicates a back vowel for the medial syllable of Afghani in (25b). For this reason we classify it as an exception. Also the loan mammoth > meng.ma is represented with the character for meng 'fierce', perhaps for semantic reasons.

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benadryl [en] ben.na.jun [en]

felony [ən] fei.lun.nu [un]

laudanidine [æn] lan.dan.ni [an]

mana [æn] man.na [an]

monarchy [ɑn] meng.ne.'a.ji [ɤŋ]

perphenazine [en] pia.fen.na.xin [en]

penicilin [en] pan.ni.xi.lin [an]

thiram [æm] qiu.lan.mu [an]

seneca [en] sen.ni.jia [en]

penny [en] pen.ni [en]

arsphenamine [en] shen.fan.na.ming [an]

spanner [æn] shi.ban.na [an]

scammony[æn] si.kan.mo.ni [an]

Tammany [æm] tan.mu.ni [an]

gunny [ʌn] gong.ni [oŋ]

Tony [on] tang.ni [ɑŋ]

Downing [ɑun] tang.ning [ɑŋ]

b. afghani [ɑn] a.fu.han.ni [an]

memory [em] meng.mo.li [ɤŋ]

34

mammoth [æm] meng.ma [ɤŋ]

The data in (25) show that faithfulness to the backness of the vowel--

redundant in Mandarin but contrastive in English--is an active constraint

of the loanword grammar that overrides homorganicity for the NC cluster

that might otherwise be expected since it does not require the insertion of

a place feature in the coda but merely anticipates the place feature of the

following onset. We illustrate this aspect of the Mandarin loanword

grammar in (26).

(26)

e/kɑn/omy Id-V[back]E-M Dep-Place-Coda

ai.kan.nuo.mi *!

>ai.kɑŋ.nuo.mi *

2.3 Vm -> Vn, Vŋ

Finally, in (27) we list loans where the English source word contains a

labial nasal in the coda. Since Mandarin bars [m] from the coda, the nasal

35

coda must alter its place of articulation. The data indicate that the choice

between [n] and [ŋ] is determined primarily by the front vs. back nature

of the preceding vowel in the English source word (27a). The more

centralized wedge vowel is once again less decisive, occurring with both

dorsal and well as coronal nasal codas. Exceptions are shown in (27b).9

Here as well we find that the adaptation has recourse to the more salient

vowel rather than substituting a default consonant such as [n] that might

otherwise be expected under a *Dorsal » *Labial » *Coronal ranking for

consonantal place (de Lacy 2006).


a. ambersite [æm] an.bu.rui.te [an]

ambroise [æm] an.bu.luo.si

ampul [æm] an.bu

samsonite [æm] san.suo.na.te

Gram [æm] ge.lan

jam [æm] zhan

compost [ɑm] kang.po.si.te [ɑŋ] 9 The shampoo > xiang.bo loan is represented with the character for 'fragrance' and so may be a case of semantic contamination.

36

combination [ɑm] kang.bai.na.xiong

compost [ɑm] kang.po.si.te

compote [ɑm] kang.bo.te

communism [ɑm] kang.men.ni.si.mu

commons [ɑm] kang.men.si

combiner [ɑm] kang.ping.na

commission [ɑm] kang.mi.xiong

Tom [ɑm] tang.mu

Thompson [ɑm] tang.mu.sheng

samba [ɑm] sang.ba

quinoform [om] kui.nuo.fang

embelin [em] en.bei.lin [ən]

sumbul [ʌm] sang.bo [ɑŋ]

gumbo [ʌm] gong.bo [oŋ]

rum [ʌm] lan.mu [an]

calumba [ʌm] ka.lun.ba [un]

yumpies [ʌm] yong.pi.si [oŋ]

carborundum [ʌm] ka.bo.lan.deng [ɤŋ]

trumpet [ʌm] qu.lang.pai.ti [ɑɳ]

37

atom [əm] a.tun [un]

Edam [əm] yi.dun [un]

b. shampoo [æm] xiang.bo [ɑŋ]

mambo [ɑm] man.bo [an]

adam [əm] ya.dang [ɑŋ]

empire [em] ying.bai.er [iŋ]

emperor [em] ying.bai.li.re.er [iŋ]

The tableau in (28) shows the effect of Ident-V[back]E-M in the adaptation

of compost.

(28)

/kɑmpost/ Id-V[back]E-M *dorsal, labial *coronal

kan.po.si.te *!

> kɑŋ.po.si.te *

The adaptations of the unstressed syllables of atom and Edam ([atun]

and [yidun]) with a coronal support the idea that [n] is the default nasal.

If the [±back] quality of the schwa vowel of English is indeterminant (as

38

seems plausible--cf. Flemming & Johnson 2007) then the choice between

the coronal and dorsal coda is resolved by the markedness hierarchy that

substitutes coronal as the default oral place.

(29)

/ætəm/ Id-V[back]E-M *dorsal *coronal

>atun *

atuŋ *!

Before concluding this section we briefly address the possible role of

orthography in the coda nasal adaptation process. The vast majority of

loans spelled with "on" are adapted as [ɑŋ] and those spelled with "an" as

[an]. Could orthography be the basis of the adaptation pattern rather

than reference to the salience of the vowel on the F2 dimension? We

think not. First, the few words in our corpus with an [ɑn] sequence from

Romance languages such as franc and canto are adapted with a back

rhyme in accord with the back vowel in the source. Second, "on" and "an"

words where the corresponding syllable in English is unstressed such as

cushion are by and large adapted with [ən] and not [ɑŋ] or [oŋ]. Since

39

stress is not orthographically recorded, the adaptation must be based on

the spoken form of the word to explain this distinction. In our view the

adapters use their knowledge of the spelling regularities of the source

languages to guide them in the correct pronunciation of the source word

vowel, which in turn determines the adaptation. This is evident in

occasional mistaken interpretations such as satan > [sa.dan] where the

final syllable is treated as stressed. Finally, even if we were to grant that

orthography is the basis of the adaptation, it does not help to explain why

in the orthographic equivalence of "on" = [ɑŋ], it is the vowel symbol

that is the determining factor rather than the consonantal one. Salience in

the phonetics provides a more plausible basis for understanding the

adaptation, especially when it is combined with the observation that the

less salient central vowels wedge and schwa do not determine the

outcome. Here it is the nasal consonant that appears to do so. If the

Mandarin adaptation of nasal codas is based on spelling, then if "n"

determines the outcome for syllables with wedge and schwa, why not for

"an" and "on" as well?

40

3. Another Corpus

The list of place names on the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs website

provides another opportunity to study the adaptation of nasals into

Mandarin.10 These data largely corroborate the generalizations found in

the data from the dictionary discussed in section 2. First, source words

with a front [æ] followed by a nasal ([m] or [n]) uniformly have the [an]

correspondence in Mandarin.


Alexander [æn] ya.li.shan.da [an]

Amsterdam a.mu.si.te.dan

Anatolia an.na.tuo.li.ya

Atlanta ya.te.lan.da

Birmingham bo.ming.han

Canberra kan.pei.la

Canterbury kan.te.bo.lei

Canton kan.dun

Fanning fan.ning 10 We thank Ross Foo for providing us with a transcribed list of such words.

41

Flanders fo.lan.de

Grampian ge.lan.ping

Hampshire han.pu

Indiana yin.di.an.na

Kansas kan.sai.shi

Manchester man.che.si.te

Manhattan man.ha.dun

Mansfield man.si.fe.ier.de

Nancy nan.xi

Nantucket nan.ta.ji.te

Nottingham nuo.ding.han

Stamford si.tan.fu

In cases where the loan source contains a conflicting combination of

vowel nucleus and nasal coda, the vowel is the determining factor in the

adaptation in the vast majority of cases (31). For [ɑn] Ontario and Tucson

(31b) are the exceptions where we find an unexpected front vowel.

Perhaps the latter is based on a false parsing Tuc+son (cf. Addison >

42

adisen). For [æŋ] the only exception is Doncaster (31d), for which the

OED provides a [dæn] transcription despite the spelling.


a. Adirondacks [ɑn] a.di.lang.da.ke [ɑŋ]

Bronx bu.lang.ke.si

Connacht kang.nuo.te

Cornwall kang.woer

Klondike ke.lang.dai.ke

Oregon e.le.gang

Wisconsin wei.si.kang.xing

Longford lang.fu.de

Taunton tang.dun

Tyrone di.long [oŋ]

Yukon yu.kong

Montana meng.da.na [ɤŋ]

Monte Carlo meng.te.ka.luo

Montpelier meng.bi.liai

Vermont fo.meng.te

43

b. Ontario [ɑn] an.da.lue [an]

Tucson tu.sen [ən]

Pondicherryu ben.di.zhi.li

c. Anchorage [æŋ] an.ke.lei.qi [ an]

Anguilla an.gui.la

Angus an.ge.si

Frankfurt fa.lan.ke.fu

Franklin fu.lan.ke.lin

Lancashire lan.kai.xia

d. Doncaster [æŋ] tang.ke.si.te [ɑŋ]

We have seven examples for [ʌŋ]. Five are faithful to the nasal,

recapitulating the behavior seen earlier in (21). The syllable gaps *len and

*den motivate the changes in vowel height.


Fundy [ʌn] fen.di [en]

Brunswick bu.lun.rui.ke [un] *len

London lun.dun *len, *den

44

Dunkirk dun.ke.er.ke *den

Front fu.lan.te [an] *len

Sunderland sang.de.lan [ɑŋ]

Dundee deng.di [ɤŋ] *den, *din

Finally, when the final syllable in the English loan is unstressed, the

expected [Cən] is found in many cases (33a). (33b) and (33c) reflect two

alternative responses to the Mandarin syllable gaps against the otherwise

expected [ən] rime. In the former the vowel is adapted as high (Id-CPl-

Coda » Id-V[high]) while in the latter the height change is blocked,

compelling a change of the nasal coda (Id-V[high] » Id-CPl-Coda). The

adaptations in (27d) appear to be based on the orthographic

representations in which the vowels are treated as full rather than

reduced.


a. Cardigan(shire) [ən] ka.di.gen [ən]

Devon de.wen

Lincoln(shire) lin.ken

45

Logan luo.gen

New Haven niu.hei. wen

Saxony sa.kr.sen

Solomon suo.luo.men

b. Boston [ən] bo.shi.dun [un] *den

Eton yi.dun *den

Lachlan la.ke.lun *len

Lawrence lao.lun.si *len

c. Croyden ke.luo.yi.deng [ɤŋ] *den

Wimbledon wen.bu.er.deng *den

d. Akron [ən] a.ke.long [oŋ]

Cro-Magnon ke.lu.mai.nong

Birmingham bo.ming.han [an]

Evans ai.fan

Michigan mi.zhi.an

New Orleans niu.ao.er.liang [ɑŋ]

In sum, the adaptations in the place names largely conform to the

generalizations uncovered in the analysis of the dictionary loans in

46

section 2.11 The adaptation of the coda nasal is determined by the position

of the vowel in the source word on the front-back, F2 dimension. When

the vowel occupies an intermediate position on this dimension, as in the

case of wedge [ʌ], or is indeterminant, as in the case of schwa, the nasal

place of the coda is largely preserved.

4. Phonetic Basis

The surface phonetic contrast in vowels before the alveolar vs. dorsal

codas has been studied in a number of phonetic investigations of

Mandarin. For example, Chen (2000) reports F2 differences of c. 500 Hz.

in [an] vs. [aŋ] rhymes when they appear before a stop such as daŋ.da

‘single hit’ (tennis) vs. fɑŋg.da ‘magnify’. They are located in the interior

of the vowel and are not just a coarticulatory effect at the VC transition.

Crucially, she also finds that these differences persist--at a lower (c. 250

Hz) but still significant (P < 0.001) magnitude--in the wake of the

11 The appendix to Hall-Lew's (2002) study of more recent western loanwords into Mandarin drawn from the area of popular culture contains c. 130 items including the following that conform to the generalizations seen in sections 2 and 3: carnation > kang.nai.xin, champagne > xiang.bin, crayon > gu.li.rong, hamburger > han.bao, nylon > ni.long, sandwich > san.ming.zhi, and sauna > sang.na.

47

deletion of an intervocalic nasal in casual speech sha(n).ao ‘cove’. The

magnitude of the F2 differences in Mandarin [an] vs. [ɑŋ] rhymes was

further documented by Mou (2006), who found a c. 400 Hz difference at

the mid point of the vowel for her Beijing subjects (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Averaged values of F2 movement for 18 Standard Chinese

(Mandarin) vowels from 100 ms. prior to the nasal consonant to 30 ms.

into the nasal consonant

Another relevant finding by Mou (2006) was that the average F2 values

for predorsal low and mid vowels are relatively close to the values found

48

in syllables lacking a coda while the pre-coronal nuclei are more distant

from such open syllables.

(33) F2 in Hz

Ca 1111 Ce 1440

Caŋ 1172 Ceŋ 1448

Can 1330 Cen 1578

This difference makes sense under Flemming's (2003) interpretation of

the relation between coronal consonants and vocalic tongue body features

as one of fronting the tongue body to accommodate a consonantal

constriction at the alveolar ridge. The relatively steady rise in F2 for [an]

in Figure 1 in comparsion to the largely flat trajectory in [ɑŋ] also makes

sense in these terms. Finally, Mou (2006) reports gating experiments in

which her subjects could reliably guess the presence and identity of the

upcoming coda nasal when they heard less than half of a low or mid

vowel. On the other hand with high vowels, where there is a contrast

among [i], [y], and [u], speakers could not reliably identify the following

nasal--especially after [i] where there may even be neutralization of the

49

[n] vs. [ŋ] contrast. In sum, Rhyme Harmony is a genuine process of

Mandarin grammar--an enhancement effect (Keyser & Stevens 2006) that

speakers can utilize to identify the place of articulation of the nasal coda.

5. Summary and Conclusion

This study utilized the Mandarin nasal codas to probe the phonological

vs. phonetic bases of loanword adaptation. Nonhigh vowels are assigned

different allophones along the front--back dimension in order to enhance

a phonemic contrast between coronal and dorsal nasal codas. Our

principal finding is that when the adapter is presented with conflicting

choices to satisfy this phonotactic constraint of native grammar, it is the

information found in the phonetically more salient vowel that determines

the outcome. This result is in line with other cases of such conflict in

loanword adaptation reported in Kenstowicz (2003). Coupled with the

observation that stressed syllables are often the site of cyclic transfer

(Kenstowicz 1997, Steriade 1999), it suggests that perceptual salience

constitutes an alternative dimension of phonological faithfulness.

Tasks for future research include more extensive documentation and analysis of current loanword adaptation patterns in Mandarin as well as a

50

more quantitative analysis of the Rhyme Harmony process along the lines of Flemming (2008). More generally, our study raises the question of whether enhancements which play a role in speech perception couple together features or cues that have a natural, cross-linguistically recurrent relation such F0 and duration cues to consonantal laryngeal contrasts (Hsieh & Kenstowicz 2008); or can they involve more phonetically arbitrary connections that are rooted in the accidents of the history of individual languages? This is of course a fundamental question that has emerged in the field of phonology more generally in the past decade. We believe that continued study of loanword adaptation may provide crucial evidence to help resolve this matter.

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Documents

Mandarin Adaptations of Coda Nasals in English Loanwords